Last Hours
by khalya
Summary: hours before the execution of Draco Malfoy, his wife tries to cope with the tragedy that strikes.


I feel a presence behind me.

I look quicky behind me…my heart is beating too strongly...but there's no one.  
I must get used to it ...  
I look at the time:

6:00 p.m.

Oh Merlin! Time flies, I try to stop it but the minutes seem to be slipping through my fingers.  
I think about going back to the Ministry, to beg one more time  
But it's nor use…The name that I carry deprives me from any credibility, any hope…

6:10 p.m.

I walk down the stairs to the living-room.

She's there. In front of the fireplace, extinct despite the freezing cold which envelope us, her eyes are dry.

Is her heart dry too?

How can she be so calm?

She, who will now suffer the worst loss.

Doesn't her heart bleed like mine? Is she still human somehow?

Above the fireplace, there is a family portrait. I am not there.

Nothing will remain of my stay in this family. Nothing but my name.... and my memories.

6:20 p.m.

I plunged back 1 year ago.  
The power of the mind...

The war between Lord Voldemort and Harry Potter's supporters was at its climax.  
But we had forgotten the pain just for one day. Just the time of my marriage.

I see this room. The central span where I will soon walk alone...  
Nobody will drive me to the altar. My father, the only family I had, was killed in one of the battles that mark our lives now.

So I walk alone to my destiny, in a dress worthy of a fairy tale.

And when I move forward, I look at all these friends who smile at me.

Looking back, I wonder: did they already know they were going to die?

6:30 p.m.

No! I have to concentrate on the memories!  
At the end of the driveway, you're here. So strong, so handsome, so determined.  
You make me smile, glad to welcome me in your home, which I do not have anymore.

Happy without knowing that soon all this will break into pieces, that those monsters will steal my joy.

I arrive. I fly over the ceremony with a light heart, forgetting my orphan status ... the death of my mother ... my brothers ... my father ...  
I forget everything, because my love is at my side, and we're bonding our lives forever

The ceremony ends. You set your lips on mine.  
Me, Pansy Parkinson am now Mrs. Draco Malfoy.

6:40 p.m.

I want to shake her until her head falls!  
This is intolerable for me to see her so quiet, without any reaction.  
The only time I saw an emotion pass over her waxen face is when 6 months ago, the doors of the house were shattered.

When twenty aurors, led by Potter himself, broke home, a few dozen minutes after the fall of the Lord.

We were the first target. An old score to settle between Draco and Potter.  
Winners can afford to have the tenacious grudge.

Without having time to defend themselves, Lucius and Draco were taken, leaving us, Narcissa and myself, despatched, our house and our lives devastated.

6:50 p.m.

Today, it's been one month since we have received the owls.  
Each ours. Only this time was different.  
An owl formal, devoid of emotion, informing us of the sentence.

The sentence ... among wizards no death sentence ... no ... the ministry wants to maintain the illusion that they are not as despicable as those he would judge.  
Kill! What a horror!  
What a joke!

Their sentence is far worse than death which anyway will follow ...  
The kiss of dementor ....  
The aspiration of the soul ...  
Nothingness surrounded by suffering ....

Not a single one of the victims of the ministry has survived the dementor. After the kiss, they remain prostrated .... until you come pick up their bodies.  
Some days, sometimes only a few hours later, they disappear ....  
As the flame of a candle, which, deprived of oxygen, vacillates and ultimately extinguishes.  
The man is not destined to live without a soul.

7:00 p.m.

Oh Merlin! I think I am going crazy.  
Oh Merlin! I think I am going crazy.  
I haven't seen you since you arrest. A measure to make you suffer (I suspect a decision coming from Potter) but that kills me slowly.

Oh Lucius! You who had been so little time my father-in-law.... My thoughts are leaving your son for a moment to look around you and to assist you in the event that will be yours.

7:10 p.m.

A thud.  
I turn to the fireplace to see Narcissa kneeling.

She's not crying, of course ... a Malfoy does not cry... but I feel all the intensity of her grief.

I can't watch your mother, who, without detracting from its dignity legendary, seems to understand that she is now a widow ... or almost.

She was unable to review your father and will never do. His body will never be returned to his family, but buried in a grave without a name in the court of Azkaban.  
Soon I will be in her place.

I go up and lock myself in your office.  
I am so afraid for you.

7:20 p.m.

I can not stand idly.

I know that asking for your life will serve no purpose.

It belongs to them since the green flash out of your wand hit Hermione Granger in the heart.  
But I must write.

I do it so feverishly. I send owls to the ministry at the Wizengamot, the director of Azkaban, the minister, even to Harry Potter ... I begged my heart to let me see you, hold you in my arms; Kiss you and just say goodbye.  
I do not receive any response.

I go into your dressing room, I plunged my face in your caps, seeking the scent of your after-shave. The tears are flowing on my face.  
A Malfoy does not cry? I am a Malfoy and I cry ... my grief...my distress...my despair.

7:30 p.m.

At this moment I hate you.  
I hate you because I love you so much and you did not like me enough.

Not enough to betray Voldemort, not enough to escape, not enough to become a coward.  
Not enough to make the right decisions ....  
I know I would not survive the night. I am not strong enough.  
I look myself in the mirror.

The teenager I was wore her hair cut at the black square, which gave me an air of small plague, I have to admit...

Adult, I have pushed my hair, they are still black, although I expect every moment to discover gray.  
I have lost weight recently, my face now emaciated holds nothing juvenile anymore. My eyes seem too big.  
I look like a ghost haunting the corridors of an empty house, the last vestige of the power of a fallen family.

7:40 p.m.

Now the tears flow without interruption on my cheeks. But it doesn't matter anymoe.  
The intense pain I feel can not be evacuated by a few tears.  
I go down the stairs toward the living room.  
I can not go until the end of the road, my legs do not carry me anymore.  
I fall slowly on the ground, on the steps of marble, facing the large clock that, relentlessly, scrolls time.  
I can hardly breathe. I close my eyes.

7 :50 p.m.

I picture you; always proud, in your cell.  
Will you resist? Will You discuss? I don't think so. You can never give to Potter the satisfaction of seeing your fear.

Because him, who hates you, who is nothing for you but an opponent, who will be with you in your final moments.

And me... me, your wife, your soul mate, I am shunned away.  
I put my hand on my belly ...empty... empty of this child that we just had time to do ... but who has refused to come to the world in a world without his father.  
With the blood drained, the last memory of you I could have had is gone.

8:00 p.m

I tremble so much I am afraid to break.  
I am so afraid.  
But who am I to be afraid?  
I do not walk along this endless corridor ...  
I do not enter this awful room, no windows ...  
This is not me that is attached securely to a chair in stone, embedded in the ground.

I do not see the door opening slowly.  
I will not notice the mocking and satisfying smile of Potter.  
I will not be invaded by the worst memories of my life.  
Despite all my efforts to try to understand, I will never know what you feel when this black silhouette will enter the room, coming especially to face me, and will wait just a little bit, to enjoy the pleasure of the waiting.

I know you can never lower yourself to beg, but the panic will be read in your eyes. Yet you refuse to close them for fear that the gesture will be interpreted as a sign of you being a coward.  
You who have never been a coward ... since the death of Dumbledore .... Since you hesitated, then renounced to kill him ... since the torture of crucio that was inflicted on you by the one who was your Master.

The suffering from the kiss of the dementor, is it more intense than the crucio? I can not say ... and you will no longer be close to me to tell me.

I can hardly breathe. I feel my heart breaking into a thousand pieces. I can not contain longer sobs that threaten to blow up my chest.

I slowly looks up at the clock.

8:10 p.m.

It's over...it's over


End file.
